Adeosun Urges More Revenue Targets For Agencies

By Chris -7 months ago

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, said chief executive officers (CEOs) of federal government agencies should be given more revenue targets and probably have their tenures tied to it. She said this on Wednesday in Abuja at the launch of the template for calculating operating surplus by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF). Adeosun was represented by Mr Kyari Dikwa, the secretary, Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA). According to her, the call has become necessary as in the last two decades, the nation has not met up to 50 per cent of the revenue target set for independent revenue. “The question is why is that so? Before the budget is prepared, there are bilateral discussions between the MDAs and the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF), and some other agencies on what they should generate. “But we realised that the targets are still not being met,” she said. She also called for a review of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, (FRA) 2007, to provide for sanctions and incentives so that by giving incentives and sanctions there would be an improvement in revenue generation.

Adeosun said that many MDAs go outside the confines of their mandates to donate what should make up their operating surpluses to political parties and charity organisations and later come up to declare zero balance as surplus. This, she said, necessitated the reason for the development of the template so MDAs could know what constituted their surpluses and what should be retained as general reserve funds for the organisation. The template was launched by Mr Boss Mustapha, the secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), who was represented by Mr Willaims Alo, the permanent secretary, Special Duties, OSGF. Mr Victor Muruako, the acting chairman, Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), said that the template was developed with inputs from the initial 31 corporations in the schedule of the Act.